


We're All In This Together

by ordin_yeri



Category: SM Rookies
Genre: Gen, Mentions of former SM Rookies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 13:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17940194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ordin_yeri/pseuds/ordin_yeri
Summary: It was moments like this, Yizhuo thought, that made the SM Rookies feel like her second family. Her family away from home. They were like her sisters.OrYizhuo is too hungry to sleep and convinces Eun to take her out shopping in the middle of the night, with Hina and Sungkyung tagging along.





	We're All In This Together

**Author's Note:**

> Because we need some fanfiction for the SM Rookies girls.
> 
> I'll update the fandom for this fic when SM lets them out of the basement to debut.

“Eunnie…” a voice broke the silence that filled the SM Rookies dormitory. It was around 1 AM, practice had finished hours ago and the girls had long since returned to their beds.

One of the other girls in the room sighed loudly, “Ning, _go to sleep_.”

Yizhuo sat up in her bunk stubbornly, reaching blindly through the darkness to feel for her nightlight’s switch. The light glared through the room and the other Rookies groaned, some of them trying to roll over in bed to face away from it.

“We have practice at seven tomorrow, Ning,” Eun reminded her from across the room, her voice gentle. “If you don’t sleep now, you’re going to be exhausted in the morning.”

“I can’t sleep right now,” Yizhuo whined back. “I’m hungry.”

“You’re _always_ hungry,” Jungyeon muttered quietly from the bottom bunk.

“We have a whole fridge you can raid,” Sungkyung quipped, also turning on her nightlight.

“Didn’t you already eat everything in there, _Llama?”_ she threw back at the youngest member, who scoffed at the joke about her stage name.

“Koeun unnie, _please_ take her out to get some food before she wakes up the boys' dorm too,” one particularly tired-sounding trainee begged.

Eun suppressed a sigh and climbed down from her bunk, tying her hair up in her trademark ponytail as she walked towards the door.

“Come on, Ning. Let’s go for a late night shopping trip,” she announced, her voice sounding surprisingly bright considering how late at night it was. Yizhuo excitedly climbed down from her bed too and skipped to the door, joining the older girl.

The two trainees opened the bedroom door, letting a column of light pour into the room (which was met with more groans of tired girls) and headed towards the entrance to the dormitory. A scurry of feet followed them out of the bedroom. Eun and Yizhuo turned towards the room they had just left to see who had caused the noise.

“Last time I checked,” Eun started, “Neither of you are called Ning Yizhuo”.

Hina and Sungkyung stared back at them, the older of the pair grinning as the younger went to put her shoes on.

“My hearing might be going bad in my old age, but I didn’t hear you say that only your precious daughter Ning was allowed on your late night trip,” Hina stated, still grinning.

“What do you mean “old age”?” Eun choked. “It’s insults like this that are the reason you stopped being my favourite child.”

Yizhuo happily tied the laces of her trainers while Eun and Hina argued. They were the senior trainees in the dorm, both having spent their entire adolescent lives training to achieve their dreams, so they were as close as sisters by now. Yizhuo really admired their dedication, often wondering how long she would be able to wait before she gave up like the many other girls who preceded her.

“My dad told me that arguing makes your hair go grey quicker,” Sungkyung told them honestly.

“I guess he must have told you that during all those years you were living at home and not with us,” Hina shrugged, a look of feigned innocence on her face.

Sungkyung muttered something about how she was the only trainee who’d bothered to continue attending school, which earned her a shove from Hina and an _‘it wasn’t my fault’_ from Eun.

“Come on, let’s head out now before all the good instant ramen is gone!” Yizhuo encouraged the group to draw them away from their bickering. She opened the dormitory’s front door and bounded down the stairs of their apartment block.

 

 

 

The streets of Seoul surprisingly was still active even in the middle of the night. Yizhuo saw a few high school students heading home from their Hagwons, looking exhausted from their packed school day. She was somewhat glad she didn’t have to live like a Korean high schooler, yet she also missed going to school and having friends who weren’t also trainees. Even though she wasn’t living the life of a student, her training life was just as tiring.

Their regular late-night grocery shop didn’t look busy, which was a relief for Yizhuo. They had relied on the dark streets to conceal their faces from unwanted attention, leaving their face masks in the dormitory, but they would be completely visible once they entered the shop.

Eun led the group to where the shopping carts were stored and pulled one from the stack. She turned to the other three girls and told them seriously, “Only one of you is allowed to ride in the cart this time.”

Sungkyung called dibs on the cart, claiming she was the only one tall enough to climb into the cart without help anyway. Eun let her settle herself in the cart before pushing it into the shop, Hina and Yizhuo following closely behind.

“What are you going to buy us today, Eunnie?” Hina asked.

“Why do you always expect _me_ to buy everything for you?” she muttered, pausing the cart by a shelf of different breads and taking a loaf from it.

“We don’t have a manager to buy us stuff like debuted groups would,” Hina shrugged back. “Also, you’re the eldest.”

“You never get Jungyeon unnie to spend money on you.”

“Because Jungyeon unnie always says she needs to sleep a full night so she doesn't turn into an exhausted college student!” Hina skipped over to a display of cakes and brought one back to the group, handing it to Sungkyung in the cart.

“She’s the only one other than me who’s even bothered to stay in school. We’ll be the smart members of the group,” Sungkyung grinned.

“Literally two days ago you found a picture of a phone from the 90’s and asked everyone how it had a hashtag button on it when Twitter ‘invented’ hashtags,” Yizhuo retorted. “If you’re ‘smart’, then we must all be really dumb!”

“We _are_ really dumb,” Hina laughed. As the cart reached the drinks aisle, she picked up a carton of apple juice and stabbed the straw through the top. Sungkyung signalled for Hina to give her a carton too, and Eun watched in disappointment.

“I haven’t bought those yet!” she whined at them. Yizhuo, inspired by Hina’s actions, took a carton of cranberry juice from the shelf and began to sip on it.

“But you _are_ going to buy them,” Sungkyung shrugged. “Chill, unnie.”

“You guys never cease to stress me out,” Eun sighed, moving the cart away from the drinks aisle to stop them drinking more unpurchased items.

The next aisle, much to Eun’s dismay, was the candy aisle. Sungkyung bounced excitedly in the shopping cart as she realised this and Hina grabbed Yizhuo by the wrist before dragging her to the chocolate display. Hina picked up three multipacks of chocolate bars and ran back to Eun, dumping them on top of a giggly Sungkyung, before heading back towards Yizhuo to get even more candy.

Yizhuo took another sip of her cranberry juice and glanced across the shelves to see if she could find some jellies. She caught sight of them at the end of the aisle and was about to head over when she heard Eun scolding Hina.

“How rich do you think I am?” Eun asked, presenting Hina with one of the many bags of candies she’d thrown into the shopping cart. “Just because we have been here the longest does not mean I will tolerate you emptying my bank account.”

Eun piled bag of candies upon bag of candies in Hina’s arms, to the point where Hina was struggling to see over them all.

“Eunnie, I’m a growing girl. I _need_ to eat all this,” Hina attempted to defend herself, though Yizhuo could see the amount of candy bags in her arms was becoming too heavy for her to hold.

“You are _nineteen years old_ and you are _barely five foot tall_. If you wanted to grow, you should have drunk your milk every day _like I told you to for five whole years_.”

The pile in Hina’s arms became too tall and teetered dangerously. Yizhuo knew she could have run over there and helped Hina, but it was going to be a lot more amusing to stay back and watch the disaster happen from a safe difference.

And watch the disaster she did. The tower of candy bags collapsed in Hina’s arms, Eun tried to catch some of them in panic (and missed every single one) and Sungkyung squeaked in excitement, pulling out her phone and taking pictures of the mess.

“These are _definitely_ going in our group chat,” Sungkyung giggled, taking another snap as Eun tried to lunge for her phone. While Eun wasn’t looking, Hina sneaked a few of the candy bags back into the shopping cart before dumping the rest back on a shelf.

It was moments like this, Yizhuo thought, that made the SM Rookies feel like her second family. Her family away from home. They were like her sisters.

“Can we get some ramen before one of you causes permanent damage to the other?” Yizhuo interrupted them.

“Sure, let’s head to that aisle now and then we can leave,” Eun agreed, relief sounding in her voice that this late night excursion was nearly over.

Yizhuo led her friends to the next aisle, softly humming a song from a drama. She would like to be able to hum her own group’s songs in the future. At the moment, all she could settle with was the handful of songs they recorded last year for that TV show.

She took several packets of instant ramen from the shelves - enough for all four of them. The members at the dorm who had slept through the trip could buy their own ramen, Yizhuo decided.

Eun turned the cart around and led the group to the tills, loading the shopping on to the conveyor belt. Occasionally, Sungkyung handed her something from the cart that was hard to reach. Hina leaned against the cart, scrolling through something on her phone.

“Do you think one day we’ll be too famous to go shopping without being noticed?” Yizhuo wondered aloud.

“We’re already famous enough that people have been lingering outside the SM building for the past five years trying to sneak pictures of us,” Eun answered matter-of-factly.

“Good job that we learned how to be ninjas recently to avoid public attention,” Hina grinned as Eun took the half-finished carton from her hand and placed it on the conveyor belt.

“Speak for yourself,” Sungkyung grimaced, stretching towards the conveyor belt to put her drink on there too. “I’d avoided the spotlight for years and suddenly my graduation pictures are all over the internet. I can’t even scroll through Twitter without seeing accounts with my yearbook picture as their icon.”

“At least those pictures are recent. All my pictures that are on the internet are from when I was like 10,” Yizhuo cringed.

Eun pushed the cart to the end of the till to load the shopping back in as the cashier scanned it through, “Hopefully we won’t have to wait much longer.”

 

 

 

The stroll back to the dormitory was much quieter than the journey to the shop. The streets were now practically empty, with only the occasional car cruising past. All four of the girls carried a shopping bag full of the food they’d bought, even though Eun had insisted they probably didn’t need half of the stuff in there.

Yizhuo found herself remembering how the line-up of their late-night shopping trips had changed since she’d become a trainee. When she first moved to Korea, she used to stay behind at night while the trips took place. She hadn’t understood Korean that well and didn’t know any of the other trainees either.

Her first late-night trip was at the beginning of 2017 with Eun, Hina and Yiyang, who’d agreed to accompany Yizhuo after the other two girls had invited her along. She remembered it felt weird being out so late with them, and she only understood half of the conversations, but it was the same night when she realised that a language barrier wasn’t going to stop her friendship with them.

On a few occasions, the _other girl_ joined them. She spent most of the trips quiet, only talking to Eun and Hina when they addressed her. Yizhuo didn’t really get to know her but noticed how the morale of the group dropped when she left. At the time, she thought the other trainees were sad because their friend had left, but now she knew they were sad because they had all realised that the trainee life could badly affect someone as young as her.

After that happened, Eun made Yizhuo promise to tell her if anything was bothering her or if she was becoming stressed. She would eternally be grateful knowing that Eun cared about her that much.

For a while, the shopping trips continued with the usual four girls. Sungkyung would join them when she was on a break from school, though that was rare.

Then the night came when Yiyang told her that she was planning to go home. Yizhuo had felt conflicted. She knew she wanted the best for her friend, but a selfish part of her wanted Yiyang to stay.

The group of girls on the late-night trips decreased to three.

And then, Sungkyung moved to Seoul after she graduated middle school. Yizhuo was ecstatic, glad she finally wasn’t the youngest girl there. The trips turned into wonderful memories for her, where she’d laugh and enjoy the time with her best friends. She hoped they would always be this close.

She hoped they’d stay with her.

Yizhuo had been so deep in thought that she hadn’t noticed they were already back at the apartment building and Eun was pressing her pass-card to the sensor.

“Let’s always stay together, okay?” Yizhuo told them as they scaled the stairs.

“Of course,” Eun agreed. “We’re going to debut together.”

“You can’t get rid of me. I’m like an itch,” Sungkyung teased, playfully patting Yizhuo on the head.

“As the great philosopher Troy Bolton once said: _‘We’re all in this together’_ ,” Hina replied, thoughtfully.

“Didn’t we also sing that?” Sungkyung mused.

“Yes. And it was a chorus song, Hina, sung by the entire cast. You can’t attribute your fake deep quote to Troy,” Eun told her, unlocking the door to their dormitory.

“I’m aware of that, Eunnie,” Hina retorted as she kicked off her shoes. “Has anyone told you that you’re no fun?”

“ _You_ have. Numerous times.”

“It must be true then.”

Yizhuo really hoped they would always be like this.

All in this together.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi yes I love the SM Rookies girls and I would die for Koeun.
> 
> Also...
> 
> Whomst the FLIP set Koeun's name as Ko Eunji? We need to TALK...
> 
> A PSA: her name is Ko Eun. The Eunji thing is just something the internet spread a few years back, but we've since seen documents that have her name listed as Ko Eun.
> 
>  
> 
> Follow my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/song0fstarlight), chingus for more SM Rookies girls content.  
> I also have an [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/song0fstarlight/) dedicated to SRG edits that I occasionally update.


End file.
